


The Family You Choose

by Kacka



Series: First Impressions and First Loves [2]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Background Relationships, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-03
Updated: 2016-02-03
Packaged: 2018-05-18 02:38:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5894830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kacka/pseuds/Kacka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bellamy adopts Wells into his friend group, and despite Raven's instincts, she likes him a lot. It's just her luck that he's in love with someone else.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Family You Choose

**Author's Note:**

> If I ignore the fact that Wells is canonically dead, maybe they'll bring him back?

Raven meets Clarke first.

They don’t exchange many words, both reeling from the realization that the guy they were dating was also dating someone else. She’s aware, in the background of her personal drama, that Clarke also dumps Finn, also seems heartbroken, also seems to feel degraded and disrespected. But that’s not Raven’s primary concern. Raven has known Finn her entire life, and she’s loved him for a good portion of that. Clarke has, in Raven’s mind, far less to lose.

She later realizes that’s not the right way to look at the situation, but being fair-minded isn’t her default in emotional situations.

No, her default is to indulge, and Bellamy Blake turns out to be up to the task. He’s not enough, in the end, but he does introduce her to Miller and Octavia. He even introduces her to Murphy, who helps Raven egg Finn’s car one night on the condition that she won’t tell any of the others. And over time, she begins to heal. Finds new family.

Their little group grows, in part because Miller and Octavia turn out to be romantic saps, and in part because Bellamy just can’t help himself. He has no control over his impulse to adopt the souls who have whatever quality it is that calls to him. And that’s how Raven meets Wells.

Bellamy had texted them earlier in the day to let them know he’d invited someone new to trivia, so Raven takes it in stride when she sees a stranger wedged in a booth between Octavia and the wall, Bellamy and Miller shoulder to shoulder across the table. Raven can tell the newcomer is tall even though he’s sitting down, and he has a nice-looking face. Then again, so did Finn.

“–another couple of people,” Octavia is saying, and Raven plops down on top of her friend.

“Wait no longer, the party has arrived,” she declares and leans forward to speak directly to the newbie. “Wells, right? I’m Raven.”

“Nice to meet you.” His hand twitches like his instinct is to extend for a shake, and Raven grins. She can already tell he’s kind of a dork, and if present company is any indication, she’s a big fan of dorks.

“You say that now, but fair warning: I take trivia very seriously.”

“As you should,” he smiles. He has a nice smile, she thinks. “What’s the prize for winning? I need to know what I’m fighting for, here.”

“Bragging rights,” Octavia answers, rolling her eyes.

“That is serious,” Wells says thoughtfully.

“They also give everyone on the team a free drink,” Raven protests.

“Bell and Monty both work here. We pay for maybe sixty percent of the drinks we get here.”

“So it’s mostly the bragging rights,” Raven says to Wells, as if she’s letting him in on a big secret. “We’re all pretty competitive. It’s more of an incentive than you might think.”

“I’m not that competitive,” he admits, like it’s a bad thing. Like he’s worried he won’t fit in with them. “But I can get pretty caught up in other people’s excitement, so I won’t hold you guys back.”

It’s at this point that Octavia’s boyfriend arrives and she makes Raven get up to switch seats. Raven is more than happy to move closer to Wells. Other than Lincoln, whom Bellamy hasn’t completely accepted as a part of the group, Raven was the newest, and she finds she’s more enthusiastic than she would’ve expected about being on the other side of things.

He doesn’t, in fact, hold the team back at all in trivia. Between the two of them, she and Wells are able to get most of the fill-in-the-lyrics right, and he also names the two Mars rovers– Spirit and Opportunity– before Raven can. Granted, she has been drinking whatever Murphy is bringing her, but she’s not sure she’ll ever be far enough gone that she wouldn’t know that kind of thing. She’d forget her own name first.

“How did you do that?” She demands, smacking Wells lightly on the arm. She hopes it was light, anyway. Her depth perception is a little off.

“Do what?”

“Swoop in before me with that answer! Like, seriously. How?”

He laughs, not unkindly, and shrugs the shoulder she’s not leaning against.

“My dad is a huge NASA enthusiast. I come by it honestly.”

Raven wants to be mad that he stole her thunder, she really does, but she just can’t work herself up to it, in part because of his earnest manner, and in part because he sidetracks her with a discussion about the rovers’ findings and whether she thinks aliens are really out there.

She’s glad when everyone else– excluding Murphy– seems to approve Wells, and even gladder that Murphy’s evident disdain doesn’t run him off.

Octavia gives her a knowing look whenever she and Wells end up sitting together by the end of the night, regardless of where they each began it. It’s not Raven’s fault if they get immersed in a conversation no one else, except sometimes Monty, if he’s around, is interested in. 

Raven knows she likes him, even if she is a little wary of following her instincts these days. They tell her to use men and lose them, more often than not, but she knows she couldn’t do that to Wells. To the friend group. Besides, her gut was off with Finn, off with Kyle, so it clearly can’t be trusted.

When she finds out Wells is in love with someone else, it feels like validation of her guardedness. The other shoe has dropped, and she doesn’t have to wait for it anymore. She tries to tell herself that’s a good thing, that she can just be his friend now, but she can’t help the way her heart dovetails.

The evening had started off so promising. He’d slid in right next to her, asking her which episode of  _ Cosmos _ she’s on and how badly she wishes she knew Neil Degrasse Tyson personally. Miller had lasted about three seconds before excusing himself to the bar, where Bellamy and Monty were both on shift. Octavia and Lincoln were having date night, and Murphy had disappeared to do whatever it is that Murphy does on his own time, everyone is a little afraid to ask, so it ended up just being the two of them talking.

Talking about Netflix and personal heroes had somehow transitioned into talking about life stories, and Wells explaining to her why exactly Bellamy took pity on him and herded him into the group.

He never explicitly  _ says _ he’s in love with her, won’t even speak her name, but Raven can tell by the reverential way he talks about her. She wants to be sick, but she also sees how hurt he is and tries to empathize. 

“I know how you feel,” is what she comes up with. She tries not to cringe at how out of practice she is with the whole empathy thing.

“Your childhood best friend also ran off to China because she blames you for her father’s career imploding and parents’ divorce?” He sounds less like he’s upset about his friend and more like he’s laughing at Raven’s attempt to relate to another human being. Octavia has teased her before about being part robot, but Wells shouldn’t know that about her yet.

“No. But I also used to be in love with my childhood best friend, so I’ve got that going for me, at least.”

“Damn,” he sighs. “I guess it must be obvious, because I didn’t have to tell Bellamy either.”

“Bellamy is a bartender who spends his spare time reading classic novels, so he usually assumes romantic tragedy until proven otherwise.”

Wells sort of laughs at this, staring down into his cider. He’d always drunk beer at first, and hadn’t often gotten past the first quarter of it, until Bellamy made him try something sweeter. He usually drinks the whole thing now, which Raven considers a baby step.

“How did you get over it?” He asks. Raven goes to down the rest of her drink but she’s mostly already drunk it. Looks like she’ll have to be sober for this, seeing as she doesn’t have a good exit ramp without looking like a terrible friend.

“He cheated on me with another woman,” she admits. The only person she’d really had to tell this story to was Bellamy, and he’d told the others what they’d needed to know: that she was a friend, she was hurting, and she was likely to do something stupid if she wasn’t watched. Miller and Murphy babysat her without questions, which is in large part why she decided to stick around.

“Jerk,” Wells says, with more anger than Raven knew he could manage.

“Watch that language,” she teases him. “I’m not over it. Not really. I don’t love him anymore, but I have a hard time letting anyone else love me. Even so, I’m a lot better than I used to be.”

“I’m glad.” She believes him. He sounds like he means it with his whole heart, which is not good for Raven’s heart at all. “Though,” he says, his tone deliberately lighter, “that doesn’t exactly give me practical guidelines for getting over my friend.”

“Sorry I don’t have a twelve-step program.”

A silence falls between them and it’s heavy but it’s not pulling her under.

“It sounds like it’s a lot about moving on,” Wells finally decides. “Understanding, really knowing in your core, that they’ve moved on. And being able to redirect your love for them toward someone else, or even yourself.”

“You might be right, Dr. Phil.”

He walks her to Monty’s car later so she can catch a ride home. Bellamy took her keys at some point, and Miller and Monty are having a moment somewhere behind them, so she takes advantage of the privacy to be brave and says, “If you get to a place where you’re ready to move on, you should let me know.”

“If you’re going to incorporate my secrets into your twelve steps, my only stipulation is that I get some credit for them.”

“I meant so you could ask me on a date,” Raven says, and she’s sure it’s not medically a good thing that she can feel her heart beating this hard.

“Oh,” he says quietly. She’s prepared to dive headfirst into the nearest bottomless pit when he adds, “Then you’ll definitely be the first one I notify.”

“Good.” She finds his hand and squeezes it, lets him hold her door open, and watches him watch them drive away. Miller says nothing, and that’s kind of the beauty of Miller’s friendship. He knows when she needs to be given some crap, and when she doesn’t.

They don’t talk about it again, though she does tell the whole thing to Octavia one night when Lincoln and Wells are at the gym instead of the bar. It’s a wednesday, but Raven still doesn’t really understand that decision. Octavia gets drunk with her and pets her hair, which is all Raven was looking for. Raven and Wells keep joking and talking and being friends, and Raven thinks everything is fine.

Except she should have known better than to be lulled into that false sense of security, because the sucker punch that the object of Wells’s affection is  _ Clarke Griffin _ hits Raven hard.

“Griffin,” she says warily.

“Raven.” She’s still everything Raven isn’t: well-off, pale and blonde, lucky.

Wells is thrown at the exchange.

“Wait… How…?”

In that moment, Raven makes a decision. If not for Wells, she would have few reservations about accepting Clarke’s presence among them. For his sake, she tries to bury the anger inside her and go for that empathy thing again. It’s not Clarke’s fault everyone is apparently in love with her. It’s not.

“Long story,” she says, her voice a little too loud. “For a time when I’ve had more to drink.”

“Hear, hear,” Clarke says, and Raven remembers thinking they could get along. She tries to smile back at the blonde, but doesn’t quite make it.

Bellamy, to Raven’s immense surprise, is the one making everything difficult. He snarls at Clarke, even after Wells tries to talk him down, and it only gets worse when he finds out about Raven and Clarke’s shared history. When he stomps outside to throw his tantrum, Raven exchanges a look with Octavia that reassures her she’s got this one handled, but Clarke stops her with a gentle hand on her shoulder.

“Can I?” She asks, the hurricane in her eyes showing Raven she’s ready for this fight.

“He’s a proud asshole, but you can use that against him,” she advises Clarke and sits back down. Wells is staring at Raven as if he’s seeing her in a new light, which only makes Raven’s skin itch.

He doesn’t say anything until Clarke gets Bellamy to come back inside, both with all their teeth and pretty skin in tact. She lives up to the hype, and Raven must grumble as much under her breath because Wells is suddenly right beside her, saying, “I was worried she’d push him into oncoming traffic, but it looks like they both made it out unscathed.”

“You’re not going to say anything?” Raven asks before she can filter that thought.

“About Finn?” He shrugs. “There’s not much to say, is there? You’re both too good for him. You’re both better now.” He studies Clarke, who is actually smiling with Monty and his friend Jasper at the bar. “I am kind of glad my list of people to hate didn’t double, like I thought it had. It’s much more efficient if I can just hate the one guy, honestly.”

“You don’t have to hate him.”

“It’s my pleasure,” Wells says, nudging her knee with his. And just like before, she really believes that he means it. 

Which makes it so much harder when Clarke sticks around.

Raven actually likes her. A lot. She’s rougher around the edges than Wells is, and she stands her ground impressively against Bellamy and Murphy, who appears to have decided to dislike her based on her proximity to Wells.

She and Clarke and Octavia start hanging out as a unit more, which is nice because Raven’s never really had a lot of girl friends before. They make a pact to incorporate more estrogen into their friend group, because it looks like Clarke has decided their group is as much hers as she is theirs.

Bellamy continues to be ridiculously resistant to Clarke’s presence, even after Raven yells at him about it. Sometimes the only way to get through to a Blake is to increase the volume, though it doesn’t work that well this time.

Raven continues to try to stop liking Wells so much. It’s hard because even though Clarke is around all the time now, Wells still sits next to Raven and tells her about his day, still dissects about  _ Ender’s Game _ with her, still makes her feel important to him. But Clarke is still there, Raven’s opposite in so many ways, and Raven knows that someday she’ll be somebody’s first choice but for now has resigned herself not to hope too much for Wells.

She doesn’t intend to tell Clarke any of this, but Octavia gets tired of tiptoeing around the whole thing and brings tequila to their next girls night, which she knows is Raven’s weakness. 

“I’d pick you first,” Clarke says sadly. Her head and Raven’s head are mutually propping each other up and she’s got one finger twisting in Raven’s ponytail. Tequila might be Clarke’s weakness, too.

“Yeah, well, you can’t fall in love with yourself, can you?”

Clarke and O are quiet, and it suddenly occurs to Raven that Octavia hasn’t said much recently. When she strains to see the girl in her peripheral vision, she’s pretty sure she’s asleep and holding the bottle like it’s a teddy bear.

“He was all I had for so long,” Clarke whispers, startling Raven. “I always felt disappointed that I didn’t love him back. It would have been so much easier for our friendship if I did. I never would have gotten screwed up with Finn. And Wells deserves someone who loves him back.”

“He does,” Raven nods to emphasize her point, and her skull knocks painfully against Clarke’s. “He’s such a  _ nice  _ person. Not just acting nice so people will say he is, you know? He just really cares how other people feel. Not like me.”

“You care,” Clarke says defensively. “You care how I feel. And how Wells feels. And Bellamy, and O, and sometimes even Murphy. You just keep your circle smaller than him, but you don’t care any less.”

“That’s the problem,” Raven sighs. “I care too much.”

She wakes up the next morning with her head pillowed in Clarke’s lap and a pounding hangover. Octavia leaves around one, way too chipper for Raven’s mental health. Before she leaves she makes them both promise they’ll come to her birthday party later that night, regardless of their physical conditions.

“I’m impressed you actually made it,” Wells says, smirking when she shows up almost an hour late. “Clarke texted me this morning to make sure I was still coming and I’m pretty sure she was still drunk.”

“It’s all Octavia’s fault,” Raven mutters. “Where is Clarke anyway? I thought you two were coming together.”

“She said she had a project to work on. Her car is here but I haven’t seen her. Haven’t seen Bellamy either,” he says, raising his eyebrows at Bellamy’s closed bedroom door. Raven feels her jaw drop, like a damn cartoon character.

“It’s about time they resolved that sexual tension,” she laughs, forgetting for a moment who she’s talking to.

“Ugh,” he shudders. “Please don’t ever put that visual in my head again.”

“Sorry. It was a–"

“Don’t apologize. It’s not– I’m not jealous. It’s not like that. It’s just kind of like imagining your parents doing it.” He shudders again.

“Are you… You’re not…” Raven can’t quite articulate what she wants to know. Wells seems to understand anyway.

“I’m getting over it,” he tells her, and it’s like someone has put air back in her lungs. “I might  _ be _ over it, but… I want to be sure.” She sees the look in his eye and she knows he’s thinking of Finn. He’s trying not to be Finn, and Raven wants to kiss him just for that.

“Good,” is all she can say before she flees to find Octavia.

After that, it’s constantly running through the back of her mind when she’s hanging out with him, but she’s not upset about it. For him to be certain is significant enough she doesn’t mind waiting.

Almost a month later, she gets a text from him that reads,  _ Dinner tonight? I’m making chili. _

She doesn’t think much of it at first. His phone randomly does the thing where instead of sending a message to the group, it will send a bunch of individual messages. She chalks it up to a technological fluke, makes a mental note to tease him about it later, and responds with a thumbs up emoji.

When he opens the door and he’s wearing nice jeans and a henley with the sleeves pushed halfway up his arms– which, Raven notes, is a good look for him– she’s embarrassed because she didn’t have time to shower that morning and she’s pretty sure her shirt has oil stains on it. He looks nice and she looks like a hot mess.

He doesn’t seem to mind, his smile widening as he steps aside to welcome her in.

“You’ve been holding out on us,” Raven says, looking around his apartment with interest. She’s apparently the first one to arrive, but she doesn’t mind because it gives her room to snoop. “This is so much closer than Clarke’s place. How come you’ve never had us over before?”

“It’s normally too much of a mess,” he laughs, leading her further into the apartment. The smells coming from the kitchen are incredible, and she decides that if nobody else shows up soon she’s going to have to start without them. “This, that you’re seeing now, is definitely not something you should get used to.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” she says, rounding a corner and coming face-to-face with a table set for two.

She freezes and stares at it for a minute, trying to give her brain room to work the problem. Wells has stopped off in the kitchen to stir the food or something like that, and doesn’t notice at first when Raven appears in the doorway, flabbergasted.

“So do you like–” He breaks off when he looks up and sees her expression, confusion and worry crossing his face in equal measure. “What’s wrong?”

“Is this a date?” Raven asks, crossing her arms over her chest.

“It was supposed to be,” he says, setting the spoon down on the counter. “Did– You didn’t realize.”

“I texted you back a _thumbs up_ _emoji_ ,” Raven remembers, horrified with herself. Wells is growing increasingly distressed, thinking she’s appalled with him.

“Yeah, I guess I should’ve been more clear,” he says, apologies in his voice. “You don’t have to stay, if– I mean–”

“I would’ve looked like I didn’t come straight from under a car,” Raven says, bringing a hand to her forehead in dismay.

“I don’t mind,” Wells rushes to reassure her.

“You’re cooking for me.”

“I am.” He smiles at her, but it’s small. Anxious. “Let’s try this again. Raven, I’d like to take you on a date. We’ve been out together a lot, so I thought maybe we could do something different. Special. Would you like to have a romantic dinner with me at my apartment tonight?”

Her heart is doing that thumping thing again. She should really see a doctor.

She wants to say yes, but– “You’re sure?” 

“Yeah, I’m sure.” He says it with such conviction, such bare honesty, that she can’t help but believe him.

“Okay,” she says, stepping toward him and reaching for his hand. “It’s a date.”

On their second date, she has time to properly prepare. He insists that it doesn’t make a difference to him, but the look on his face when he sees her is more than gratifying. He takes her to an art exhibit Clarke got them tickets to. It’s all sculptures from repurposed mechanical scraps, and it’s awesome. It feels to Raven like Clarke’s blessing, which she knew she had, doesn’t necessarily need, but still appreciates.

Clarke starts dating Bellamy, and it takes half the group by surprise, Wells included.

“You okay?” Raven asks, elbowing him in the side. His arm is around her shoulders, so she felt it when he tensed at the sight of Bellamy and Clarke walking into the bar, hand in hand. He leans over and kisses Raven on the temple.

“Just my brotherly instincts kicking in.”

“You’re an only child.”

“So I never honed them in on one particular subject,” he says, his fingers drifting absently over the bare skin of her arm. She tries not to shiver. “I’m more worried about the group dynamic than I am about either one of them.”

“Really?” She’s skeptical. She knows how hard it can be to just forget about someone you once loved.

“I’ve never had a group of friends like this.”

“You had Clarke.”

“Yeah, but– Clarke and I are friends because of shared experiences, more than anything. Our personalities mesh because we just spent that much time together. We were bound to rub off on each other. But at the end of the day, she’s family. And you don’t choose your family.” He looks down at Raven, his dark eyes warm. “The people you choose become your family in a different way.”

Raven leans into him a little more, sliding a hand onto his knee and smiling.

“I know exactly what you mean.”


End file.
